So a couple days ago. The I-15 freeway through Utah – ugly. And the I-215 freeway – who needs terrorists? And the I-80 freeway – can we get a break? All on the same day. Did someone spray some sort of distracted-driver-car-wreck-aerosol from a jet airplane all over the state? Something must have happened to everybody’s brain to cause so much damage all over the roads. Marvel comic book plot aside, it felt like it should have been a snow day. At least then people would have had an excuse for driving into each other. I hope that no one was badly injured, but it seems like rolling a semi-truck full of ammonium nitrate could be a pretty traumatic experience for the driver. Fortunately, I didn’t have to drive in the chaos, but Mr. Hot Stuff sure did. It took him three hours to make a one-hour drive to the airport, and he arrived after his flight left.

On another note, you know how Facebook sticks those annoying ads in your newsfeed? I have a rule – never click on Facebook ads. It’s my counter-plan to their subversive mercenary tactics. Unless it’s an awesome ad produced by the Harmon Brothers, because if you haven’t seen the Purple Mattress commercial or the FiberFix commercial, you have missed some of the best entertainment on the internet. Anyway, back to countering the invasive and semi-piratical ad placement in social media newsfeeds.

• Rule 1 – Never click on an ad.
• Rule 2 – If you do get suckered into clicking, DON’T BUY IT.
• Rule 3 – Wait. Does there need to be a Rule 3? Ah! You bought that thing, didn’t you? Rule 3 is pray. Pray it actually comes. Pray it actually works. Pray you didn’t fall into some great fake-out just to get your most personal information. Oh. That’s right, we already handed that over to “THEM” when we signed up for the social media account. Ah well, there’s always tomorrow to do better.

Confession time – I clicked. (DON’T CLICK!) I clicked.

Now I own a Purple Mattress. As a result, I sleep like a rock because my mattress is not like a rock. Oh, how I used to suffer from hard bed problems, and soft bed problems. Not any more!

Now I own Fiber Fix tape. I’m sure it’s magic. I haven’t yet tried it on anything, but my vacuum handle hit the tile floor pretty hard a while ago, so I have grand plans to Fiber Fix it.

The other day I clicked again. It was an ad for salon-quality hair-color, custom-formulated for the individual purchaser. Turns out that was me. (Stay tuned. More hyphens to come.) It took a while to get up my nerve and actually try it. Meigi cautioned me to be sure to follow the directions on the time. She knew someone in Panama who was trying to bleach her hair to that “Latin red,” which is fine, but she left the stuff in for like 4 hours, just to make sure it would work, and ended up with gobs of damage to her hair. (Seriously, 4 hours!?) I assured Meigi that I would follow all the directions carefully, and went into the bathroom for the procedure. It took me a little longer than “the professionals recommend” to get the stuff properly smeared into my hair, so I took that into consideration when I calculated the processing time. (That’s the time when you sit on the edge of the tub, staring at the clock and listening to your audio scriptures tell about the trials of ancient missionaries, and praying that nothing like that will ever happen to your son who just happens to be serving in a country you never actually considered vacationing in.)

Two chapters of the Book of Mormon, and four General Conference talks later, I’m still staring at the clock and wondering why this feels like the longest half-hour of my life… I leap up from my perch on the side of the tub, because I remember that, the night before I looked up at that clock and made a mental note to change the batteries today, because that thing is definitely not working right. Oh, crunch.

I don’t know how long that stuff was on my hair, but my best guess is about twice as long as the instructions said. Fortunately it worked out the way I wanted it to, and I can rest easy that, in spite of my absent-mindedness, the e-salon hair dye product was about as stupid proof as they could possibly make it and still have it turn out great results.

I guess the drivers the other day weren’t the only ones affected by a Marvel villain’s evil plot to stultify our brain waves.

Never. Click. The. Ads.

Edit: I’ve been requested to give you this link in case you want to also be able to sleep like a rock on a Purple mattress (although I would hope you’d have the good sense to figure it out if you watched the ad): https://onpurple.com